Ecology
An area of 107,489 hectares of land and sea was declared by the Minister of Agriculture in 1982 and designated by a Forestry Ministrial Decree in 2002 as the Taman Nasional Laut Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands Marine National Park). Public access is prohibited on two of the islands, Panjaliran Barat and Panjaliran Timur, where sea turtles are conserved.
The Thousand Islands Marine National Park is located 45 km north of Jakarta. It is mostly located on the Kecamatan of Kepulauan Seribu Utara (Subdistrict of North Thousand Islands) which is the northern part of the Thousand Islands). The complex contains 342 reef platforms, with 110 formes an island larger than half an acre. There may be as many as 700 individual reefs in the complex.
In general, the plants that grow in the Park are dominated by coastal species like coconut palm (Cocos nucifera), pandan (Pandanus sp.), cemara laut (Casuarina equisetifolia), cangkudu (Morinda citrifolia), butun (Barringtonia asiatica), mangroves (Bruguiera sp.), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), ketapang (Terminalia catappa), and kecundang (Cerbera odollam).
Sea vegetation commonly found in the Park consists of seaweed divisions like Rhodophyta, Chlorophyta and Phaeophyta as well as classes of sea grasses like Halimeda sp., Padina sp., Thalassia sp., Sargassum sp., and Caulerpa sp.
The dominant animals in the Park include 54 sea biota species which form part of the coral reef ecosystem, 144 species of fish, 2 species of giant clam, 6 species of sea grass, sea worms of various colours and 17 species of coastal bird.
This Park forms a hatching site for hawksbill sea turtle, and green sea turtle. The hawksbill turtle is an endangered species and is rarely found in other waters. These turtles are bred on Pramuka Island. This activity is aimed at recovering the turtle population, which had almost reached extinction. Breeding activities include egg hatching in a semi-natural way and caring for the baby turtles till they are ready to be released into their natural habitat.
Most coastal areas of this Park are surrounded by mangrove forest, where monitor lizards, golden ring snakes and reticulated pythons can be found.
Read more about this topic: Pulau Seribu Regency
Famous quotes containing the word ecology:
“... the fundamental principles of ecology govern our lives wherever we live, and ... we must wake up to this fact or be lost.”
—Karin Sheldon (b. c. 1945)